nabad intranet: marketing

Successful businesses conduct research on a continual basis to keep up with market trends and to maintain a competitive edge. Regardless of whether you’re starting or expanding your business, market research is vital to understanding your target market and increasing sales.

Business owners conduct research for many reasons

· Identify potential customers
Who is going to use your product/service? How old are they? Are they male or female? Are they married, single or divorced? Do they have children? Where do they live? What is their level of education? and so on.

· Understanding your existing customers
Why do customers choose your product over competitors? What do they value? Is it service, product quality or the prestige associated with consuming your product/service? Who influences their buying decision? What magazines do they read? What websites do they visit? What do they enjoy doing?

· Set realistic targets
From the information you collect you’ll be able to set realistic targets for areas such as growth, sales and the introduction of new products/services.

· Develop effective strategies
From your research you’ll be able to make informed marketing decisions about how to price your product/service, how to distribute your product/service, which media channels to use (eg: newspaper, radio or direct marketing) or whether to develop a new product/service. It will also help you make an informed decision about starting, building, consolidating, diversifying or reducing business activity.

· Examine and solve business problems
If you’ve identified a business problem, research will help you work out what is happening. For example, if your sales have fallen you might discover that brand awareness has also fallen, or that a new competitor has entered the market or a substitute product has become available.

· Prepare for business expansion
Research will help you identify areas for expansion and test the market’s readiness for a new product/service. For example you could be looking to open a new retail store and you need to find the right location or you could plan to make changes to your distribution channels (eg: from home parties to retail) and need to determine how that will affect your customer base.

· Identify business opportunities.
Your research could identify new business opportunities. You may find an un-serviced or under-serviced market. You could identify changing market trends such as population shifts, increasing levels of education or leisure time which bring new opportunities.

mardi 20 août 2013

How to establish a marketing plan?

by Hind Fadel

You can download the pdf version here.

mercredi 14 août 2013

Hind Fadel

Hind has an IT & Quantitative Techniques academic background, 19 years of work experience in senior technology and commercial roles, which helped her build substantial and rational knowledge in different business functions.

She has worked in Marketing Research & Data Mining, Product Management, Business Development, Brand Management, Marketing Communications and PR, Telcos Billing and Revenue Assurance.

lundi 12 août 2013

Joyce Bejjani

Joyce is a passionate marketer with more than 13 years of regional experience with multinationals.

She currently holds the position of Institutional Development and Communication Manager with the USAID funded project, Lebanon Reforestation Initiative (LRI) working with different groups and communities around Lebanon. Expert in marketing, branding, development and communication, she has actively contributed to the growth of the companies where she worked.

Joyce is now pursuing an Executive and Leadership Coach Certification and her aim is to accompany people to reach their goals and dreams.

lundi 22 juillet 2013

Margaret Jabara

She is currently Head of Business Intelligence at the Group Retail Banking Department in Bank Audi. Her current functional responsibilities can be summarized under three main categories: Market & Marketing Intelligence, Competitive & Customer Intelligence and Strategic Intelligence.

Furthermore, her main life purpose is working with institutions where implementing ingenuity, knowledge and experience are done in the process of achieving successful results. In addition, to helping and leading others in both professional and personal aspects; improving and developing communities (through social, volunteer work, training and coaching) with the appropriate time needed to acquire the right understanding and aiming for higher objectives every time.

In particular, she participated in the Leadership in Community Development: LICD Program with the British Council in Lebanon (covering 3 off-site modules). In addition to participating in the Youth & Municipality Workshop with the Development for People and Nature Association’s – DPNA in partnership with the National Democratic Institute – NDI.

Selim Saad

He is currently General Manager at REACH S.A.L with 20 years of active experience in the market research field, polling and operation’s managing thru the Levant ,North Africa and the Gulf.

In particularly, he was member at ESOMAR and WIN/GIA international networks & group leader for the MENA regions in Gallup International Association, grouping 14 countries.